Children 'should be prescribed statins to combat heart disease'
Article in the Telegraph
Extract from the article:
"The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidelines recommending wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems.
The push to aggressively screen and medicate for high cholesterol in children is certain to create controversy amid a continuing debate about the use of prescription drugs in children as well as the best approaches to ward off heart disease in adults.
But proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs of heart disease show up in childhood, and with 30 percent of the nation's children overweight or obese, many doctors fear that a rash of early heart attacks and diabetes is on the horizon as these children grow up."
When children become obese and develop heart disease and high cholesterol it is because they are eating salty food. - To prevent/reduce these health problems in children their salt/sodium intake needs to be significantly lowered and they should eat plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables. There is no need for them to reduce calorie intake. They also need to be protected from high doses of prescription drugs that cause fluid retention/obesity/sodium retention/salt/sensitivity.
Medics always seem to want to push more and more drugs. - Drug-pushing of statins onto children is not a good idea. - Deal with the cause of the problem in order to solve/reduce it by minimising salt intake; don't prescribe drugs unnecessarily,, especially as so many people report very unpleasant side-effects from taking statins. - There are only good side-effects from lowering salt intake...(o: - losing weight, lowering high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, lowering risk of stroke and heart disease and heart attack and type 2 diabetes, etc etc.